


QAF-US Fiction: "In Love Again" (Justin/OMC)

by justinlovesart



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-24
Updated: 2010-06-24
Packaged: 2017-10-10 06:12:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justinlovesart/pseuds/justinlovesart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-513 fiction.</p><p>Many thanks to Flashfly for the beta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	QAF-US Fiction: "In Love Again" (Justin/OMC)

  
Justin falls in love again five years after leaving Pittsburgh for New York. It takes him by surprise.

When he tells Daphne over the phone, she doesn't try to hide her relief. "Oh god, finally! To be honest, I was starting to worry."

"I thought you were still holding onto the dream of me and Brian getting back together. You've always been his number one fan!"

"That wasn't _my_ dream, Justin. All I've ever wanted is for you to be happy. In the past that was with Brian."

"Yes. It was."

Justin knows that Daphne senses some wistfulness in his voice, because she immediately starts to ask the most embarrassing questions about Kevin to distract him.

***

Love takes him by surprise because it comes so unexpectedly.

Although Daphne believes it took him long enough, Justin had never suspected, not even for a minute, that his love for Brian could ever fade away.

And it doesn't, really.

When he finds himself falling in love with someone else, he realizes that time might not erase the presence of past love, but it certainly changes its quality.

He couldn't stop loving Brian if he wanted. He knows this because he's tried – granted, not very hard - to make it happen.

But he also knows that he can't be in love with a memory forever.

***

Justin is surprised not only by the fact that he's falling in love again, but also by how it happens.

His past experiences - numerically limited, but emotionally intense - had led him to believe that love happens by an impetus so powerful that it tilts the world on its axis, or by an equally strong desire to tilt it back to its original position.

That it expresses itself with relentless pursuing or by being relentlessly pursued. Through action or words. Sex or romance.

He doesn't expect the slow metamorphosis of friendship into something else. The transformation of common interests into a common language. The consistency of a shared space that becomes intimacy.

Most of all, he doesn't expect how _easy_ it feels.

***

How easy and good it feels to fall in love again is what surprises Justin the most.

He and Kevin have been sharing a studio in New York for the past three years, a definite step up from the crammed space Justin used to share with five other artists during his first two years in the city.

The studio had been the outcome of selling his first few pieces in the collective exhibition of upcoming young artists Simon Caswell had recommended him for.

"Now you can afford a better workspace," Simon had told him at the end of the opening night.

"Kevin's looking for someone to share expenses for a newly renovated studio. You were looking at his sculptures earlier. Let me introduce you."

Kevin's sculptures – three small male nudes - had reminded him of Brian, who hadn't attended the event.

***

"All young artists need to be in love!" Simon had declared once.

The critic Justin had so dismissively referred to as a cunt with an eye for blond boy ass, had revealed himself to be a married man who, together with his significantly older wife, Marina, was fiercely protective of the new generation of artists he took under his wing.

Both he _and_ Marina had turned out to have an appreciative eye for blond boy ass, but that was the extent of their perversion. They reminded Justin of Debbie and Vic.

Simon had encouraged Justin to fall in love as soon as he'd arrived in New York. "What are you waiting for, Justin? You don't want that sex appeal of yours to go to  
waste."

It had been too soon.

Justin had held onto the hope that he'd see Brian all the time or at least once a week, once a month.

It had been never again.

***

Kevin had fallen in love with him first.

Simon had hinted at it during one of the family dinners routinely given by him and Marina to feed their starving artists.

"Kevin has been quite inspired lately. He's been producing some of his most vibrant work, and I don't think it's entirely because of the art he saw in Italy."

Justin had pretended not to understand. But he'd noticed how Kevin's sculptures of male forms had changed shape and posture.

"They look younger, brighter, more…how can I put it? Luminous?" Those had been Simon's exact words.

Justin had realized just how much he missed being called Sunshine.

***

He doesn't know why he's so afraid of telling Debbie about falling in love with Kevin.

His mother makes it very clear she's not going to do it for him and that Debbie would be devastated to hear it from anyone else. That's when he finally picks up the phone.

"About fucking time, Sunshine! I was starting to worry you'd never give me a grandchild. Who is he? The one who makes sculptures of your ass?"

Debbie has visited Justin four times since he moved to New York: twice with Carl, once with Jennifer and once with Emmett.

She and Marina get along famously, sharing an interest in pot and memories of fucking men named Julio.

"Next time I come over I'll read him the riot act, just to make sure he treats you like you fucking deserve to be treated," Debbie promises.

"Thanks, Debbie. I think he will."

***

Justin believes his falling in love with Kevin might have something to do with watching him intent at his art for nearly three years.

But it's not the only reason.

They'd be working in their respective corners of the studio, the silences stretching on for hours.

Justin would be so focused on his work that he'd suddenly realize Kevin had already left without him noticing. Or Kevin wouldn't hear him say goodnight when he rushed out to catch the last train home.

Now and then Justin would raise his head from the canvas or the computer to find Kevin looking at him, only to quickly turn his eyes back to his work.

During breaks from drawing and painting, Justin would read or eat or simply rest. Occasionally, he'd watch Kevin shape the clay in forms of various sizes that he'd fire later in the kiln.

"I had a kiln at my place in Pittsburgh," he'd told Kevin once.

"You ever use it?"

"No. It's strange, because even though I'd never sculpted before, it was one of the reasons I chose that studio. And because it was cheap. I lived there. It was a hovel, but it was all mine." Justin had smiled at the memory.

"Do you still have it?"

"What? The kiln?"

"No, the studio in Pittsburgh."

"God, no!" Justin had laughed. "I've never been back since I left."

Only later, one year into their acquaintance, had Justin told Kevin about almost getting married, about Britin. About Brian.

Then he'd asked: "The sculptures at our first exhibition. Who's the man?"

Kevin had told him, and their cautious, tentative friendship had begun. Soon afterwards, they decided to go to Italy together.

***

Justin isn't particularly surprised when Michael asks him about Kevin, "this guy mom says is going to father her next grandchild."

What surprises him is the absence of any serious disapproval in Michael's voice over the phone. Only regret.

"I'll be honest. I'd hoped that you'd come back some day. That you and Brian would eventually get back together. As a matter of fact, I still do. I don't know what went wrong. You never said anything, and he sure as shit isn't talking. But I also know that five years is a fucking long time to hold onto the past."

Perhaps Justin is supposed to read something between the lines of Michael's speech, but he stopped trying to second-guess people a few years ago. He's not going to start again now.

It's almost a miracle, he thinks, that his relationship with Michael has survived the last five years.

All thanks to Rage.

They still publish two issues per year. It's never going to make them rich, but it's gained a sizeable niche following and a cult status that earns them a minimal, but steady income. It gives them both a break from their routines, whether comic shop and suburbia, or high art and the city.

In the comic book, Rage and JT are still together, their love stronger, more tormented and more romantic with each new issue.

"Justin, whatever happens in your life or in Brian's, Rage and JT are never going to break up. Right?" Michael is uncharacteristically adamant about this, and frankly, Justin is relieved.

He wonders what Brian thinks about that. But he doubts Michael knows that either.

***

He and Kevin hadn't fucked in Italy: not each other, that is. But they'd started to sleep together well before they fell in love, or at least before Justin did.

He knows that the fucking wasn't the reason for their falling in love. But it had been the sign of how comfortable they'd become with each other, of their preference for also spending that time together, rather than apart.

Justin remembers how their first time had been neither the earth-shattering experience of his first night with Brian, nor the romantically charged but ultimately disappointing "love-making" with Ethan.

It hadn't brought the mindless, intense pleasure of casual sex. Nor the basic satisfaction of doing it just right with a reliable fuck buddy, like Connor James.

It had been suffused with the intimacy of friendship, the comfort of knowing the limits of each other's expectations and the surprise of exceeding them.

"Don't forget the relief of getting off," Kevin likes to remind him.

If Justin were to sketch his first time with Kevin he'd draw a picture of them laughing the next morning, surrounded by breakfast in bed. Not a rose or violin in sight.

He also remembers that the day before had been the first time he'd not thought of Brian for a whole 24 hours. Not once.

***

Justin falls in love gradually, unaware of its happening, and without putting up much of a resistance.

"Do you ever wonder if Brian will fall in love again?" Kevin asks him one morning in their studio.

Justin stops painting for a few seconds, knowing that Kevin's question is as much about Brian as it is about the man of his old sculptures. "Maybe he already has."

"How would you feel about that?"

"I'm not sure," is Justin's honest answer.

He doesn't know if he wants Brian to find someone else to love. Yet, he longs for him to be happy.

Perhaps Brian's happy already, content with his life made of Babylon and Michael, Kinnetic and Liberty Avenue, Lindsay and Gus. Maybe he truly doesn't _need_ romantic love.

What Justin knows is that he, Justin Taylor, _can_ live without romantic love. He's been doing it for the past five years.

He's got his art and artist friends and a makeshift family in New York. He's got friends and family in Pittsburgh too, and the time might have come for him to finally pay them a visit.

But for now he enjoys the sun shining through the windows of the studio where he's at work on a new canvas, the noise of the city coming from the street, Kevin molding the shape of his cock in clay across the room.

Although slightly bewildered, he luxuriates in the feeling of being in love again.

Because Justin doesn't need love. But he wants it. 


End file.
